The processing power and possibilities offered by modern user interfaces of certain mobile electronic devices, such as personal digital assistants, smart phones and the like, in particular those using the Apple operating system, the Android operating system, the Windows Mobile operating system, or similar, have developed so much in recent years that these devices can be used for multiple purposes. Normally, the using of a mobile electronic device of the above kind involves controlling the execution of at least one application on the mobile electronic device. If the application is an application located remotely with respect to the mobile electronic device, the application for the mobile electronic device is controlled.
The inventor participated in a project in which the use of different healthcare applications by staff of a healthcare unit (hospital) was observed. The healthcare applications were used through smart phones or through computer terminals in rooms for administrative tasks. When a staff member wanted to start a particular application with his or her smart phone, he or she selected the application by touching the touch screen of the smart phone, for example. In order to protect sensitive data, in most applications it was necessary for the staff member to log in to the application by entering his or her login data (such as user name and password). Some applications were operated locally on the smart phone and some were used over a communications network such as wireless local network, most commonly via a browser.
We observed that most members of the staff in the healthcare environment had to use a number of applications. The maximum number of applications required for an individual was around twenty. Most staff members felt that remembering passwords was difficult. Furthermore, since the active session in the applications was terminated after a certain time had elapsed from the log-in, we found that the log-in in different applications had to be performed repeatedly during the work shift.
We were shocked to find that selecting applications, starting them and giving the login data took, in extreme cases, up to 20 percent of the total working time of individual staff members.